"Where is Vera?" Maddox asked looking up to Hamish as he ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"She's meeting up with the rest of the council today to talk about the wendigo."

"Was it scary?" He asked Hamish as he tried to feed Theo.

"Nah, not that scary. In the end it was just a man, a man who was thankful we were able to help him." Hamish brought the spoon close to Theo only to have her slap it away and get more peaches and banana smeared all over her hand. "Honestly Theo is scarier when she gets hangry."

Maddox laughed a little. "Yeah, she is pretty scary when she's hungry." Hamish brought another spoonful of food towards Theo only to have her sit back in her highchair and whine.

"Okay Mads, what's Vera's secret?" Hamish finally looked at the boy, after three failed attempts to get her to eat anything he was calling on a 10 year old for guidance.

"Theo wants to eat everything we are eating so Vera just pretends to eat Theo's food, but you also have to make it sound like it's really good." He took another bite out of his sandwich as Hamish gasped.

"Wait, Vera pretends to eat Theo's food?" He stopped to think about what that might look like. "That sounds so adorable." More so seeing Vera doing something that silly in order to get Theo to eat but if it worked then a little dignity could die before Theo turned into Randal when he was craving a burger. Getting another spoon full of the baby food Hamish put it towards his lip and acted like he was eating it off the spoon. "Mmmm, this is good stuff Theo, you are missing out." He pretended to get another spoon full and eat that too while Theo looked over at him with a pouty face and whined. "You want to try it too?" Theo whined again, reaching over to him. This time when Hamish brought the spoon over to her Theo ate her food without question.

"Mmm." She imitated him and then opened her mouth up again wanting more.

"Well, that's so simple it's sort of stupid." He gave her another spoon full of food and watched Theo slowly look over her dirty hands. Don't do it, don't you dare do it. She reached up into her hair, smearing the horrid combination of nearly liquified mashed fruit into her dishwater blonde locks smearing back a small portion of her hair with pureed food. Okay, it was fine, he could finish feeding her and then give her a bath. "Hey Maddox, after I finish feeding Theo and washing her up I'm going to the temple for a while, one of my friends is coming over to watch you two so be on your best behavior."

"I could watch Theo without any help, I'm old enough to."

Hamish smirked and nodded his head. "I know you are but Vera doesn't want you guys to be alone."

"Vera treats me like a baby, I'm not Theo."

"Vera just worries a lot, about both of you." Maddox crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back with a huff. "No really, she does. She treats you like a baby sometimes because she cares about your safety and doesn't want you to get hurt. Also she's only ever dealt with babies so she's still trying to figure out this how to handle a kid thing." Valid, Vera was doing her best balancing everything on her plate right now and she was doing great.

"So, is Randal coming over? I like Randal." He was pretty fun, let him eat icecream, played video games with him, and they watched scary movies.

"No, actually Jack is the one coming by." He saw Maddox visibly drop in stature at the news.

"Oh, cool."

Once Theo was fed Hamish picked her up and took her to the upstairs bathroom to give her a bath and get the banana out of her hair. Maddox finished up his sandwich and put the dish away in the sink knowing Vera had a thing about them being left in the kitchen. He headed back to his bedroom and grabbed one of his comic books as he sat down on the sofa and started to read it over. Another brilliant issue from the Walking Dead series, the comics were great but the show had lost him pretty quickly. Sinking all his attention into the book he hadn't even noticed Jack walk into the house looking like he was lost. Had he never been here before or something? Maddox looked up at raised a brow as Jack slipped off his shoes and headed for the living room. "Hey Maddox, where is Hamish?"

"He's giving Theo a bath." Maddox folded his comic book shut. "She put food in her hair." Speak of the devil, not long after Jack had shown up Hamish came downstairs carrying Theo with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Theo was wearing a onesie with duckies all over them and was wrapped in a blanket that had a sloth head hood. Her hair could stay wet for a while and just out of fear she would get sick if she was left wandering around with wet hair Hamish always kept her in a blanket until it air dried.

"Hey Jack." Hamish adjusted his grip on Theo since she was trying to wiggle out of the blanket. "You get to take this, she's just been fed and washed up so she should be good for another three hours and if Vera isn't back by then she's going to need a bottle." Jack felt like he hadn't even had a whole lot of time to settle into his surroundings before he was holding Theo and watching her whine and reach for Hamish. "It's okay Theo I won't be gone forever." He leaned in and kissed the little girl on the forehead. Theo tried to grab hold of his tie but Hamish caught her little hand and shook it playfully before passing them. "If you need anything please feel free to text or call me."

"Alright, sounds good." Jack just waited until Hamish was out of the house and Theo was already starting to cry. "Oh, wait, how do you make her a bottle anyways?" Jack was about to rush the door frantically but he figured he wouldn't be here that long. Besides right now Theo was screaming in his ear and thrashing around, he had bigger problems right now. "Hey Theo, don't worry, uhhhh….why is she crying?" He looked at Maddox since he was the only one in the house who lived with her.

He stepped forward reaching out to Theo and taking her from Jack's arms. "Because you are doing it all wrong." Maddox rested Theo over his shoulder and rubbed her back, bouncing her lightly. "You can't just shake her, you are going to just upset her more. She also likes when you walk around because then there is more she can look at and get her mind off being upset." Maddox hugged Theo listening to her crying slowly quiet down.

"You are pretty good with that."

"Yeah, I'm practically her big brother. It's what a big brother would do. You have to look out for your little sibling."

He knew Maddox didn't know the truth, he hadn't meant to make a jab at him but it had struck him in the chest hearing the boy say that and being so honest about it. Here Maddox was treating this little girl who wasn't even related to him in any way as his little sister. He looked after her, took care of her, and said it's what a good brother would do. Then Jack realized once he was going to let their father kill him. He had been comfortable just sitting back and letting his very real little brother die. "Well, that's very nice of you."

"I always wanted to have a sibling, I thought maybe that we could have been best friends growing up but I never got to have one. Vera told me my dad is never coming back so I'll live here until I'm older, Theo is only ever going to grow up knowing me as her brother, so that's what I'm going to be."

"Yeah, I'm an only child too." Because their father had been the cause of his mother's death. Then again Jack wasn't really an only child was he. Looking at Maddox made him feel uncomfortable, he wondered if Hamish felt any guilt knowing he'd taken the kid to trade for Lilith. Now he was raising him like he was never willing to toss that boy on the altar in exchange for Lilith's safety? How could he sleep with himself at night? Jack wouldn't question it, he supposed taking in Maddox hadn't been much of a choice on his end.

"You want to go downstairs and watch a movie? Sometimes I like to just have background noise when I'm watching Theo and sometimes she actually pays attention to it."

"Sure, what are you thinking of watching?"

"Umm, Labyrinth." He smiled at Jack.

"Whoa, that is an old movie, way before your time." He paused a moment. "Before my time too actually."

"Yeah, mo…." Maddox caught himself shaking his head like he was about to mess up hard on something. "Vera showed it to me."

Jack smirked a little, how awkward it was that he and Maddox were so much alike. Both of them were orphans now with no family left. Now both of them even had the same messed up 'mother' figure. Jack would be a liar if he said he didn't see Vera as his mentor and kind of a parental figure. He'd lost his mother when he was so young that he sometimes struggled to even remember her face. As soon as he'd entered the Order Vera had just taken him under her wing, he never quite knew why but maybe Vera just saw something in him that nobody else had seen. Now Maddox was literally being raised by her, they were years apart and Maddox didn't know the truth but their fates were so similar. "Cool, we can watch that, yeah."

"Theo likes that movie." Maddox smiled and carried her downstairs. She was getting heavier but Maddox still mustered through it since she wasn't too big for him to handle yet. Downstairs Jack saw a lot more of Hamish's things, his big screen tv from his apartment was hanging up on the wall along with some of the stuff from his bar. He also had his record player and albums down here from the den and a few personal pictures up on the wall. Most noticeable was the photo from his den of him and all his old high school friends looking like a bunch of morons. There was also a bookcase with all of his books from back at the Den. Well, this looked pretty official, Hamish seemed to have settled down in Vera's house.

It wasn't a total surprise to Jack, after all he and Vera had a baby now and they were engaged. It only made sense that he and Vera would start settling down together. Hamish left the original Den to found his own. Once they use to joke about him staying at that run down old house when he'd had that nice apartment and now looking around this place he'd seemed to upgrade again. "Well, you can tell this is Hamish's hangout."

Maddox put Theo down into a walker that Hamish had brought down. Mostly because it let her adventure without getting herself into trouble. She stood up on her toes supported by the walker and for the most part right now distracted by all the toys surrounding her. "There you go Theo." Maddox smiled and handed her one of her fabric baby books since she couldn't throw it and hit him with it. Well, she could but at least it didn't hurt like the plastic ones. Almost instantly Theo knew exactly what she wanted to do and as fast as she could run on her toes she headed for the stairs only to bump into the first step. That was it, there was no further she could go and that had been the idea when Hamish had brought it down here.

She turned around and headed over for the bar at cruising speed looking like she was on a mission. "Well, you take after Hamish, about to go make us both drinks?" Jack joked and made Maddox laugh a little as he turned on the playstation.

"She can't make drinks, she can't reach the counter top." Theo came back around the other side before turning around and running back towards the couch again. Maddox got the movie put in and started it up Before putting up the gate by the steps so Theo couldn't climb out. Afterwards he put up a gate in the hallway to Vera's office and the downstairs bathroom. Once he was sure everything was Theo secured and anything she could reach if she was standing at an end table was put up out of her reach Maddox finally got her out of the walker and set her down so she could crawl around with a bit more freedom. "You have to keep your eyes on her, the beast has been unleashed." Maddox joked.

He climbed up on the couch watching the movie as Theo crawled around the ground heading back for the stairs and whined when she realized she was locked downstairs. "You are pretty good at this whole watching Theo thing."

"I know, I hang out with her a lot after school." He glanced over at Theo from time to time to make sure she wasn't getting into any trouble.

"You really do like playing big brother don't you." Maddox shrugged his shoulders.

"It helps out Hamish and Vera. It's hard to get things done when you also have to entertain Theo all day." Great, way to make Jack continue to feel horrible. He wasn't ready to be a big brother to Maddox, not today at least but maybe one day he'd tell the boy the truth and then on that day neither one of them would be those kids without a family. They would at least have each other.